Cambridge Digital Library

Christ's College

When I awoke next morning, the bedroom seemed puzzlingly
bright...The quarters chimed, first from a distance away,
then from Great St. Mary’s, then from the college clock,
then from a college close by. The last whirr and clang
were not long over when, soft-footedly, Bidwell came in.
The blind flew up, the room was all a-glare; Bidwell
studied his own watch, peered at the college clock,
uttered his sacramental phrase: ‘That’s nine o’clock,
sir."— C.
P. Snow, The Masters (London, 1951), p. 11

Christ's College was first established as God's House in
1437 by William Byngham, a London parish priest. Shortly after
receiving its Royal Licence from Henry VI in 1446, God's House
was forced to move from its original site to make way for the
King's new project (what was to become King's College). God's
House moved to its present site in 1448.

After the death of her third husband and the accession of
her son as King Henry VII, Lady Margaret Beaufort turned her
energies to good causes, among which was God's House. This led
to its re-foundation as Christ's College in 1505.

Following the twists and turns of the Reformation, Christ's
became one of the leading Puritan colleges of Elizabethan
Cambridge. In 1625 it admitted the young John Milton, who would
become a leading Puritan apologist of the Civil War and one of
the greats of English literature. His Paradise Lost
was first published in 1667. Christ’s holds several first
editions of this work, plus a large amount of Milton’s other
literary and political writings.

Another of our famous alumni, Charles Darwin, came up in
1828 and lived in rooms in First Court that have subsequently
been restored to resemble how they would have looked during his
time in College. While his world-renowned On the Origin of
Species was published some thirty years later in 1859, the
young Darwin's interest in botany and geology was nurtured at
Cambridge. Christ’s holds a large number of books by Darwin,
along with a collection of his letters.

Like the rest of Cambridge, life at Christ's was transformed
by the Victorians, with more rigorous exams, the rise of
experimental science, and the opening of the University to
non-Anglicans. In 1897 the College’s original Old
Library, dating back to 1505, was increased by an extension
constructed to accommodate several significant collections
donated in the nineteenth century by Peter Fraser (in
1852), Charles Lesingham Smith (1878) and William Robertson
Smith (1894). We also hold significant collections of
manuscripts (including some 60 Persian manuscripts, donated in
1861) and incunabula. The College of the 1930s is evoked (and
caricatured) in the celebrated novel The Masters
(1951) by scientist, author and Christ’s Fellow C.P. Snow
(1905-80).

Those wishing to know more about Christ’s are recommended to
consult the quincentenary history edited by David Reynolds,
Christ's: A Cambridge College over Five Centuries
(Macmillan, 2004). This accessible history includes
contributions from distinguished Christ's historians such as
Simon Schama, Roy Porter, and David Cannadine.

By continuing to use the site you agree to the use of cookies. You can
find out more in our help section.